Stupid Lawsuit

[Buck]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1525590,00.html

 

[Fushigi]

Stupid is right. If that sort of thing flies, I can see the next lawsuits lining up:
- sue cities for providing carpool lanes
- sue companies who provide carpool and even parking subsidies
- sue the average citizen for not using their service

 

[Tannin]

This is sort of reassuring. I mean, usually one would read that, sigh, and say "only in America". But I doubt that even an American lawyer would try that one on.

Or am I dreaming?

 

[blakerwry]

It's cirtainly true you can sue anyone for anythign you please, however finding a lawyer who will support you and having a case that will not be thrown out in seconds is a completely different matter.

 

[sechs]

I should sue the auto makers and petroleum companies for ruining public transit....

 

[jtr1962]

Interesting but I'd say the lawsuit will go nowhere. What these people did basically amounts to carpooling, and they had valid reasons for doing so. Instead of suing, the bus company might have asked why did they choose to do this instead of taking the bus. I'm all for public transit. Always have been. However, in order to work public transit needs to be fast and frequent. Most people will accept a 10 or 15 minute time penalty in exchange for avoiding the need to drive. However, few would be willing to turn a 15 minute drive into a 2-hour odyssey.

We had a similar situation where I live a while back. There is a local 2.5 mile feeder bus route to the subway where I live. During rush hours buses usually run frequently (every 5 minutes or less) so you usually board a bus right away, and just wait until it finishes loading before leaving. However, during midday and especially late at night service is less frequent. After midnight it's only hourly. As a result people with cars or off-duty taxis sometimes picked up passengers at the subway station and ran the bus route during off hours, charging the same as the bus. This provided a needed service. The bus company of course tried to stop this practice but never asked why do people use it. After all, from a safety standpoint some of these cars/drivers certainly left something to be desired. The reason was simple-someone who just missed a bus didn't feel like waiting 15 or 20 minutes for the next one, which incidentally would take 20 minutes to run the route because it was packed with passengers (normal run time was around 12 to 15 minutes).

Anyway, with the elimination of two-fare zones once the token was replaced by the Metrocard this practice seems to have come to an end. I don't ride the subways regularly any more since I work at home so I can't say if the poor midday service has been addressed. Nevertheless, few if any people would be willing to pay what now amounts to an extra fare to a private car to save several minutes so the problem was partially solved. Actually, paying double fares was an inequity for those city residents not near a subway so this needed to be addressed anyway. Hopefully the relative lack of service was addressed as well. To increase midday ridership so as to justify more buses an off-peak fare was instituted but I don't know if it was successful or not. The private bus line which ran the route was recently taken over by the MTA so the off-peak fare is history. I believe they are studying the possibility of instituting it for the entire bus/subway network which is a good idea. Subway trains could be more frequent during midday as well but the ridership needs to be there. The problem isn't nearly as bad as with the bus line in question, though. I think the expresses are on 8 or 10 minute headways during midday. Since two lines run on the same track on the Queens Blvd line that means a train to Manhattan every 4 or 5 minutes. I can live with that even if I'd rather see a train every two minutes.

I venture to guess that if the bus company suing either lowered their fares or had better service the issue would be moot as well.

 

[jtr1962]

I should sue the auto makers and petroleum companies for ruining public transit....

Find a good lawyer and I'll join you.

 

[Santilli]

I hope they have SLAP suit law over there. In Kalifornia, if you bring a frivilous lawsuit, you not only get it thrown out of court, but you have to pay the othersides expenses, and you are barred from bringing the case in the state again...

Law was made to deal with a religous group that used to use frivilous lawsuits, and the expense, to destroy people, and their companies, or get what they wanted from the people...

s

 

[e_dawg]

Canada also has some provisions like that in its legal system that prevents frivolous lawsuits... can't remember what it was, but you never see Canadians suing McDonald's for making them fat or for making the coffee too hot such that it burns when they spill it on their lap.

They could easily stop this sort of stupid lawsuit by putting the plaintiffs' faces on TV and announcing the reasons for their suit. These people (hopefully) would be ridiculed mercilessly whenever they went out in public.

 

[Santilli]

Canada also has some provisions like that in its legal system that prevents frivolous lawsuits... can't remember what it was, but you never see Canadians suing McDonald's for making them fat or for making the coffee too hot such that it burns when they spill it on their lap.

They could easily stop this sort of stupid lawsuit by putting the plaintiffs' faces on TV and announcing the reasons for their suit. These people (hopefully) would be ridiculed mercilessly whenever they went out in public.

McDonald's, over and over again, would serve coffee so hot, that you couldn't see the steam. this issue was brought up, in prior lawsuits, many times.
McDonalds ignored the law, the safety of their customers, and continued to serve coffee so hot, it would scald.

Ford had bean counters that figured it was cheaper to pay off people killed by the Pinto's exploding gas tank, then fix the design flaw.

Companies like this don't deserve punative damages, they deserve the same fate they gave their consumers. However, the legal system refuses to recognize Sicilian methods of equity, in the U.S.


s

 

[Tannin]

Huh? Coffee is supposed to be hot. OK, I'm a tea drinker, but it's the same thing. If you serve me tea that isn't hot, I'll ask for my money back, and rightly so. If I want iced coffee, I'll ask for it.

PS: defenition of "hot": 100 degrees minus minimum loss inevitable due to pouring & etc. You minimise this loss as far as practicable by doing things like pre-warming the pot.

 

[e_dawg]

That's ridiculous Greg. Coffee and tea is supposed to be hot. The kind of hot that everyone knows will burn you if you spill it on yourself like a clutz. In order to NOT burn skin, it would have to be served below 50 C (120 F). What coffee/tea drinker would drink stuff that tepid?

If someone spills coffee/tea on their lap, how is this McDonald's fault? Are people going to sue car companies for producing cars that exceed 50 mph because crashes above that speed are often fatal? Why aren't the liquor, wine, and beer makers being sued for every alcohol related death? Perhaps an example closer to home... what would you say if all the gun makers were sued for producing weapons that kill? Shouldn't they be in court every time someone gets shot?

 

[e_dawg]

I hope you don't find my tone too aggressive, BTW... you know how it is on the Internet, it's hard to judge... forgot to throw in a dozen smilicons to lighten the mood 8) :mrgrn:

 

[Tannin]

what would you say if all the gun makers were sued for producing weapons that kill? Shouldn't they be in court every time someone gets shot?

Well, yes. You see, the difference is that coffee is designed to be held in the hand and then drunk. You only get burned if you do something with it it wasn't designed for. (Pour it into your lap.)

Guns, on the other hand, are designed to shoot things. People get hurt if you do use it for the purpose it was designed for.

Ergo McDonalds should not be liable if you pour your hot, fresh coffee over your Brooks Brothers suit. Gun manufcturers do bear a share of the responsibility when you shoot your mother-in-law.

Unfortunately, the courts use crooked logic and only rarely is a prosecution successful.

 

[Fushigi]

Are people going to sue car companies for producing cars that exceed 50 mph because crashes above that speed are often fatal? Why aren't the liquor, wine, and beer makers being sued for every alcohol related death? Perhaps an example closer to home... what would you say if all the gun makers were sued for producing weapons that kill? Shouldn't they be in court every time someone gets shot?

And how about suing file distribution/P2P networks for people using them to distribute copyrighted materials, despite the many legit uses of such technology? Oops, that's already happened.

 

[Pradeep]

Guns, on the other hand, are designed to shoot things. People get hurt if you do use it for the purpose it was designed for.

Ergo McDonalds should not be liable if you pour your hot, fresh coffee over your Brooks Brothers suit. Gun manufcturers do bear a share of the responsibility when you shoot your mother-in-law.

Unfortunately, the courts use crooked logic and only rarely is a prosecution successful.

Guns are designed to shoot things. Clay targets, paper targets, bowling pins, even humans. Can be used for good - cop/armed citizen shoots home invader dead, or for evil - mass murder. Your MIL case could go either way

AFAIK there has never been a successful prosecution of a gun manufacturer for the misuse of it's products. Plenty of cases filed, but they are all dismissed before they reach trial.

 

[Pradeep]

And how about suing file distribution/P2P networks for people using them to distribute copyrighted materials, despite the many legit uses of such technology? Oops, that's already happened.

"Today, the Supreme Court clarified that, even when there is evidence of a substantial non-infringing use, where evidence shows statements or actions that promote infringement, liability may be found"

I think this was the key.

 

[i]

Ford had bean counters that figured it was cheaper to pay off people killed by the Pinto's exploding gas tank, then fix the design flaw.

So they paid people off, and then they fixed the design flaw? Wouldn't it have been cheaper to go straight to the fix?

 

[Pradeep]

I think there is a typo, he meant to say "than" rather then "then".

 

[Pradeep]

eeek, damn typos.

I think there is a typo, he meant to say "than" rather than "then".

 

[time]

Coffee and tea is supposed to be hot. The kind of hot that everyone knows will burn you if you spill it on yourself like a clutz. In order to NOT burn skin, it would have to be served below 50 C (120 F). What coffee/tea drinker would drink stuff that tepid?

You're a fair way off in your understanding of different temperatures (as is Tannin). There is a huge difference between the minor burn one would reasonably expect from a beverage spill and the third degree burns experienced by some unfortunate people who experienced sustained contact with 85C liquids.

Firstly, it's just not possible to achieve anywhere near 85C if you make coffee or tea yourself. The brewing temperature may start at 85-90C, but the brewing process lowers this - if you prewarm a teapot, probably to 70-80C. But once you pour into a china cup or mug, it will be down to 60-70C.

Then, of course, most people add milk or cream, and/or sugar, then stir it all around. I'd bet the end result will be 45-60C. That might cause pain, but not a burn.

Of course, the milk angle is one reason why coffee machines deliver coffee hotter than drinkable. But without any additives or stirring, into a styrofoam cup without any thermal mass to speak of, liquid might stay pretty close to 85C for a couple of minutes.

The effects of hot liquid on human skin can be exponentially related to temperature, eg, just a few degrees difference may reduce the exposure time before burning by ten times.

Incidentally, there's a proven link between consumption of very hot beverages and esophageal cancer. You can 'train' yourself to drink super hot drinks because regular consumption deadens the nerves in the mouth and throat. That doesn't mean you're not burning yourself, just that you can no longer feel it.

In the case of the lawsuits, I see the problem as being one of packaging. It can be quite tricky to get those pesky lids off without spilling the drink, which has always surprised me given how common they are. Also, perhaps better design could keep the coffee warm for longer and obviate the need to serve it so hot in the first place.

People are far more likely to be burnt at McDonalds than elsewhere because of their drive-through facilities. It's difficult to burn yourself standing up or sitting in a normal chair because your first instinct is to jump up or back, keeping the spill away from your skin. It's kinda hard to do that in a car with good bucket seats, which is what happened to the plaintiff - third degree burns to 6% of her body, skin grafts, multiple stays in hospital and obviously great pain.

 

[Bozo]

"It's kinda hard to do that in a car with good bucket seats, which is what happened to the plaintiff - third degree burns to 6% of her body, skin grafts, multiple stays in hospital and obviously great pain."

This did not happen to the woman at McDonalds. She got a mild sunburn type of burn. (it's hard to get a severe burn from a hot [non boiling] liquid through a couple layers of clothing) The news media blew the whole deal right out of sight. Of course, the news media didn't report that after McDonalds appealed the absurd settlement, the case was thrown out by a higher court. Sensanalism sell papers, the truth doesn't.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Bozo]

If you Google the McDonalds lawsuit, you can find at least a dozen different versions what happened. Most can't even get the womwns age right or whether or not she was driving.
Until I talk to the woman, I don't believe any of it.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[time]

Do you work for McDonalds or something?

There have been a number of cases of customers being injured by McDonalds coffee - 700 according to McDonalds themselves. The definitive lawsuit is widely referenced on Google. There was no appeal because McDonalds settled after the first court.

And like I said, people don't seem to understand the effects of different temperatures.

 

[Tannin]

If I pay money for a hot drink, I want a hot drink. If it ain't hot, I want my money back. Most people, I am sure, feel the same way. If they didn't, they would order iced coffee.

So, what you are saying, Time, is that this dumkopf ordered a hot drink, in the full knowledge that it was indeed hot, and fully expecting to have to take the lid off and then drink it in a moving car, and then she burned herself and she is blaming someone else?

What a moron.

Thre are four things the judge should do:

* Throw her stupid case out
* Fine her for wasting the court's time
* Have a serious chat to her lawyer, telling him not to be such a damn fool
* Take her driving licence away because she has already proved she's not fit to be in charge of a vehicle on public roads.

 

[e_dawg]

Hmm... I think our temperature references are a bit different, time, but I will concede that the temps at McDonald's may have been a bit hotter than home brew with tea using a kettle > teapot > tea cup process, but I find it hard to believe that a person would sue someone else for their own stupidity. I guess sometimes you have to infringe on the rights of some to protect the stupid from themselves... (seriously)

-----------

In other news, have you heard about the john who contracted venereal disease and sued the pimp for procuring him an unclean woman?

 

[time]

I don't want to embark on some sort of campaign here, but Tannin et al, what makes you think the victim did anything stupid?

She wasn't the driver, the car wasn't moving. Pray, what exactly did she do wrong? Became a customer of McDonalds, perhaps?

Please read the bloody Google link.

 

[Bozo]

Like I said, you can find any answer your looking for.
Here http://lawandhelp.com/q298-2.htm it says there was an appeal.
another article says there was an appeal plus an out of court mediation.

Are they factual?????

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Mercutio]

All I can say is, if I received third degree burns on my groin from a cup of coffee, I'd be suing everyone from the guy who made that pot to the bastard who grew the beans.

It'd be one thing if I spilled coffee and had a little boo-boo on my leg for a couple of days. Fine. But that's not what that woman sued for. A third degree burn is an injury I'd never want to experience, and it's not an injury I'd expect from anything that's served at a frickin' McDonalds.

As long as we're talking about stupid lawsuits, how about all the crap the RIAA does in the US? Suing one college kid for $90 BILLION dollars on the basis of their valuation of the MP3s on his computer, or inflating the valuation of music piracy by some multiplier of how fast the CD Burners in the defendant's computer is.

 

[time]

... it says there was an appeal.

Sorry, I assumed a "trial court" was not an appellate court. I'm not familiar with the roles that different US courts play, so I thought it meant that the judge at the first trial reduced the damages awarded by the jury, as well as denying McDonalds leave to appeal.

Can you clarify?

 

[Bozo]

I think you are correct on both accounts.
Like I said, you can find whatever answer you want on Google.
I'm confused.

Bozo :mrgrn:

PS: I don't drink my coffee that hot. I usually ask for some ice to temper it a bit. Anywhere that I get it.

 

[jtr1962]

As long as we're talking about stupid lawsuits, how about all the crap the RIAA does in the US? Suing one college kid for $90 BILLION dollars on the basis of their valuation of the MP3s on his computer, or inflating the valuation of music piracy by some multiplier of how fast the CD Burners in the defendant's computer is.

I'd love to know what kind of storage this kid is using. Even going at the highly inflated price of $20 per song that means he had 45 million songs on his machine, and at an average of 5 MB each they would have required 225 TB! Atomic level storage anyone?

Seriously, on this issue songs should have copyrights that expire after a few years. By then the the recording studios have alreay made 99% of all the money they're ever going to make from that song. That would free the song up to legally become public domain on file-sharing networks. It would also greatly reduce the number of songs the RIAA needs to police. The above lawsuit is telling me maybe they're not doing this because they have a new business model-namely making money from copyright infringements instead of selling CDs. Totally disgusting. :tdown:

 

[jtr1962]

Sorry, that's 4.5 million songs and 22.5 TB. Still a gargantuan amount of storage to fit in a PC.

 

[Santilli]

Actually, I thought they were microwaving the coffee, making it so hot you could not see the steam. I buy Macs coffee, but take it out of their cups, which I consider incapable of holding the liquid, and, which quickly become too hot to hold.

As for the Pinto, they killed something like 250 people before the lawsuit was finally brought, and the court made Ford stop.


I think the concept here is there is an INDUSTRY STANDARD for coffee, and the heat it should be served at. People expect a certain level of heat, and plan accordingly. If a beverage is too hot, you can't see the steam, and you burn hell out of your mouth...causing you to drop the coffee...right in your lap...

s

 

[Mercutio]

jtr, as I recall the basis of the suit wasn't just that the kid stored the songs, but that he'd functioned as a Napster supernode for x number of months, during which time some large number of people downloaded music from him. Still, $90 billion is such a fantastically enormous sum of money that it makes me wish the US had the concept of barratry.

 

[e_dawg]

I don't want to embark on some sort of campaign here, but Tannin et al, what makes you think the victim did anything stupid?

Well perhaps stupid is too strong a word, but it was still her fault, and as an adult, she should be responsible for her own actions. Why is everyone absolving her of being reponsible for the consequences of her actions? Was she mentally retarded? Was she forced to pour the coffee on her lap by a disgruntled McDonald's employee? Is your average cup of coffee in any food service establishment normally that much colder to the point where someone would be shocked that spilling coffee on themselves actually causes their skin to burn? The answer to all the above, my friends, is a resounding no.

Should someone sue the concrete maker for making their concrete unusually hard if they slip and crack open their skull from the fall? Should someone sue Black & Decker if they suffer 3rd degree burns on their privates after tripping over the cord, knocking over the ironing board, and landing groin first on top of the exposed soleplate?

Coffee is usually served hot. Very, very hot. Scalding hot. Everybody knows that. Many other places that serve coffee or tea use extremely hot water as well. In fact, in most self-serve places, you put the tea bag in a styrofoam cup, and get ~80-85 C water from the hot water dispenser. If you spill it on yourself, who are you going to sue seeing as it's completely self-serve? BUNN, the water dispenser manufacturer? The cafeteria that provided you a convenient place at which to get your afternoon tea?

 

[Santilli]

My last, very hot, cup of coffee, was served in a thin walled, non-proper cup.

It was VERY hot, but, transfering it to another cup worked.

s

 

[Tea]

Wooah guys, you ain't gettin' it. This ain't rocket science, you know.

Hot drinks are supposed to be served hot. That's H O T HOT. That is 50% of the idea of a hot drink.

The other 50% of the idea is that is supposed to be a drink — i.e., a liquid containing water and (optionally) a variety of other substances which are generally thought to be pleasant-tasting, nutritious, mildly addictive, or otherwise rewarding to the average human.

Now this second part of the definition is actually more useful to us than it seems. It tells us that this thing we call a "drink" is essentially plain old water (plus some assorted impurities which, seeing as we are not talking about scotch or gin or brandy at the moment, can be pretty much ignored).

Water has many interesting chemical properties, but the one of particular interest to us here is that it freezes at 0 degrees and boils at 100 degrees, unless you want to start doing weird stuff like putting it in a pressure chamber. (There are some small variations to the exact temperatures, which are too minor to concern us in this context.)

If you change the temperature of water (with or without the tasty impurities) beyond those two end points (0 and 100), it isn't water anymore. It's either steam or ice. By definition, either way it ain't a drink if you do that: it's either a solid or a gas, and drinkz is alwayzliquid.

(Tea! Calm down!)

(Zorry.)

(And talk properly. Don't try to go so fast all the time.)

(I'm really sorry.)

Now where was I? Oh yes. We have established that a drink (any drink) is always, and can only ever be, somewhere between about 0 degrees and about 100 degrees. Now what about a "hot" drink? Well, we can certainly cross off anything much below blood temperature, because that's a different sort of drink called a "cold drink". A proper cold drink is served at between just barely above zero through to about 5 degrees, though some scungy places will sell you cans of Coca-Cola at about 15 to 20 degrees in the summer. You might buy one from those places, never two.

Then there are luke-warm drinks. Nobody likes those much (except maybe for warm milk when you are younger than me or older than Tannin - assuming that it's actually possible to be older than Tannin, that is) but they are served a little above blood temperature: in the 40 to 50 degree range.

After that, drinks fall into the "warm" category (which is OK for hot chocolate, not very good for tea or coffee unless it has lots of milk and sugar). Warm is up to about 55 degrees.

After that, it counts as "hot". (Remember hot? This is a thread about hot.)

And now we have to decide what "hot" means. First, we can cross off anything below 55 degrees (as that's only warm, possibly cold). Second, we can cross off anything over 100 degrees, as that's impossible unless it stops being a drink.

So where in the 55 to 99 degree spectrum is"hot"?

Well, we can work that out quite easily. Measure the temperature of the water you use to make your tea or coffee. You don't need a thermometer for this, as it just so happens that the temperature which every normal human being heats water to is the temperature at which water turns into steam: 100 degrees. You can tell when it reaches 100 degrees because it gets a whole lot of bubbles in it and you can see all the water vapour coming off it.

(You mean steam, Tea. Everyone knows that kettles steam.)

No I don't mean steam, Tannin. You can't see steam. Ever. Steam is invisible. Not sometimes, not if is a particular temperature instead of some other temperature, not only on rainy days or in winter — you can't see steam. Ever.

What you see is water vapour. Same as those fluffy white things up in the sky that rain on you sometimes. It's not steam.

Yes, a kettle steams, but you can't see it. All you can see is the bubbles in the water (these are steam, but you're only seeing the places where the water isn't, not the steam itself) and the water vapour that forms when the steam cools down and condenses back into tiny droplets of water floating in the air.

One of the things that makes water interesting is that, so long as it's in some sort of motion, it is pretty much the same temperature all the way through. This is particularly so in the case of a boiling kettle, as the heat is applied near the bottom, and the heated water rises to the top, making room for the slightly cooler water to flow to the bottom and get heated up so that it rises to the top, and around and around we go.

So when the kettle boils, the water is at exactly 100 degrees.

(But what if I boil the kettle, on an old-fashioned fire, let's say, so that it doesn't switch itself off, and thenkeep it on the fire? It has to get hotter than 100. 100 plus more heat = more than 100 degrees.)

Nope. Doesn't work like that. The fire transmits energy into the water, and the energy heats the water up to begin with, but once you get to 100 degrees, the water starts to turn into steam instead. The energy put into it by the fire is exactly balanced by the energy consumed by the water-steam transformation. If you add more energy (e.g., put another log on the fire or turn the gas up) then more water turns into steam every second but (and here is the really important bit) the temperature of the actual water doesn't change.

If you want to change the temperature of the water past 100 degrees, then you have to use pressure to prevent it changing into steam. This pressure thing is how steam engines work. Conversely, if you went up on top of Mount Everest, where the air pressure is very low, you couldn't have a proper hot drink at all, as water boils at around 72 degrees up there. By the time you poured it into a cup, it would be not much better than luke-warm.

Kettles don't use pressure. Ergo, boiling kettle water is always 100 degrees worth of hot. (Unless you live in Colorado or somewhere else up high, in which case boiling water is only about 95 degrees because of the lower air pressure.)

Santilli's talk about "too hot to see the steam" doesn't make sense. Even if we translate it to "too hot to see the water vapour", it still] doesn't make sense, unless we presuppose some kind of pressure cooker (which is silly) or some other way of getting ordinary water up well over 100 degrees (which isn't actually as silly as it sounds - more on this in a little while unless I get bored and go watch TV or something instead).

Every normal household, in other words, makes hot drinks at the same temperature: 100 degrees.

After that, there is some loss as the water is cooled by the air as you pour (5 degrees maybe? 10?); by the contact with the cup (probably about the same amount), and finally by letting the drink stand for an appropriate amount of time until it reaches the perfect drinking temperature, which varies from one individual to another, but is roughly 60 degrees.

The key point here is that hot drinks have to be poured at as close as possible to 100 degrees, or else by the time the person gets to drink them, they ain't hot anymore. What you going to do? Ban kettles?

She did do something stupid, two things in fact. (a) she spilled hot drink all over herself (which was an accident, no doubt, and could happen to anyone, but is something we normally train children not to do by the time they are five years old. (b) She blamed somebody else for her own mistake! Call it stupid, or call it morally culpable, or call it both, there is no way known that she has any sort of a case.

Lord knows I am no fan of McDonalds - I hate the bastards unreservedly - but in this case they did exactly the same thing that I would do, and exactly the same thing that any normal civilised human being would do: she asked for coffee so they boiled water and made coffee with it. If she didn't want a hot drink, she could have ordered a Coke.

If I went to your house and you made me a cup of tea with cold water I'd .... well, no, I'd be polite about it because you are a nice person, but I wouldn't bother asking for a second cup.

 

[Santilli]

Tannin:

I thought the neat thing about heating a liquid is the heat starts at the bottom, and goes towards to top. This action limits the amount of energy that can be transfered into a liquid, without it boiling.

Now, microwaves allow you to transfer energy into liquids, without the normal top to bottom convection that occurs. In other words, it's similar to heating a liquid from the bottom, under pressure. Also, IIRC, the coffee "holders" these companies use, do use pressure. They keep the liquid from boiling off by using a closed container, so, when the liquid trys to boil, the area above the coffee is under pressure, and boiling does not occur. In other words, the holding containers are filled, then the top area is sealed, and the only way the liquid is allowed out of the container is through the spout. This also prevents the coffee from oxidizing, and going bad. At the same time, the coffee is heated from the bottom, and cooked, to a very high temperature, higher then would be obtained by a normal pressure enviornment. Anyway, I worked in restaurants for about 25 years, and I'm pretty familiar with the sorts of holding containers used.

The main reason for the current type containers is to prevent oxidation, so the company gets it's entire use of the brewed coffee, without loosing money on it.

s

 

[Bozo]

In the one article that I read on Google, the woman involed had no intensions of sueing until she was introduced to a lawyer by a third party.

Lawyers..........

Bozo :mrgrn: